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Madeline: Lost in Paris
Madeline: Lost in Paris is a 1999 direct-to-video film. It features Madeline being kidnapped by a man pretending to be her uncle so that he may claim her inheritance from her deceased parents. Compared to the episodes and other movies of the franchise, this movie has rather dark themes. Also, Madeline is an orphan in this movie, despite having a father who brings her a dollhouse when she is recovering from appendicitis in the first book. Plot Madeline, an orphan girl who attends a boarding school in Paris, receives a letter from her long-lost Uncle Horst from Vienna. The letter states that he plans on coming to Paris to visit his niece in a few days. Excited to learn that she still has a family, Madeline awaits his arrival with eagerness. A few days later, Uncle Horst shows up at the school. He proves to be a kind and handsome gentleman, who gives a lace collar to each of the twelve girls as a gift. Horst then reveals that he has been designated as Madeline's new guardian, and that he intends on taking her to Vienna for a fine finishing school. Although Madeline and her friends are shocked, she reluctantly agreed to go. Miss Clavel invites Uncle Horst to dinner that evening, as well as Lord Cucuface and Pepito's family. At dinner, Horst tells the girls about the new Viennese school, certain that it will be more fulfilling than Madeline's current school. While Horst is leaving for his hotel, Lord Cucuface reminds him of Madeline's inheritance. The next morning, Madeline and her uncle depart for the train station. Miss Clavel gives Madeline her mother's necklace, and the two set off on their journey. Instead of taking his niece to the Orient Express, Uncle Horst takes her on the Metro, to an unfamiliar part of the town ravaged with poverty. Pepito, Miss Clavel, and the girls tried to stop the two as Pepito wanted to give her his parting gift: a shrunken head from Brazil. When they arrive at the train station, they learn that the two had taken the Metro rather than the Orient Express. Finding Genevieve (the dog) abandoned at the station, they conclude that something was wrong. Fearing the worst, Miss Clavel contacts the police for assistance.￼ Meanwhile, Madeline, suspecting that she was being kidnapped, began dropping her necklace beads as a trail. Uncle Horst then takes his niece to a lace shop, where he accidentally reveals his true identity as a Frenchman. He then reveals that his real name is Henri, and that he is not her uncle. Henri takes Madeline into the lace shop's cellar, where Madeline meets his boss, Madame LaCroque. The lace shop is filled with orphan girls who are forced into making laces to sell. One of the girls, Fifi, befriends Madeline. LaCroque proves to be a cruel and harsh taskmaster. Fifi's cough stains one of LaCroque's lace patterns, and in her anger, LaCroque bans Fifi from using white lace, and declares that she would use only black lace in the dark, which could damage her eyesight. Madeline defends Fifi, but LaCroque refuses to listen and throws Madeline into the detention room. While there, Madeline breaks off a break, and talks to the other girls. Fifi tells Madeline that LaCroque used to be a carabet dancer, but ended her career after a disastrous performance. She then sold her long hair to make lace, and started the lace factory. Fifi also reveals that all the girls are orphans, and that Henri and LaCroque lied to the courts, promising to take good care of them. Instead, the girls are treated as miserable slaves. The girls form a plan to escape, but they were stopped by LaCroque, who cuts off some of Madeline's hair. As Henri is making his way through the streets, he is spotted by the police, with Miss Clavel in tow. She proves him to be the man who had taken Madeline, with the evidence being the suitcase he was carrying, which contained all her belongings. He is then forced to lead the police to Madame LaCroque's lace shop. Through the trail of necklace beads, Miss Clavel's students and Pepito find their way to the lace shop. Just as LaCroque is about to give Madeline another haircut, Pepito uses his shrunken head dangling from a fishing rod to swipe off LaCroque's wig, and frighten her, causing her to fall to the ground. This allows the factory slaves to tie her up in rolls of lace and string. Following this, the police arrive at the lace factory with Miss Clavel and Henri in tow. Both LaCroque and Henri are arrested by the police and taken to prison for several years as punishment for their actions. With the reward money she received for her bravery and assistance in capturing LaCroque, Madeline opens a new school for the factory workers. That night while in their beds, Madeline's friends talk about what they would do with the reward money. Danielle would go shopping for clothes and jewelry, Chloe would travel to exotic countries around the world and Nicole would own a zoo "with all of her favorite animals". However Madeline has a great plan in mind, though. Sometime later, it is revealed that Madeline has used her reward to open a special school for the orphaned girls-(she also reunites with Fifi who now has long hair and is completely healthy and fully recovered thanks to Dr. Cohn who had given her treatment) and as a result, having realized that she has family all around her. All of the girls from both schools rejoice in the fact that they are all one whole family. Songs * Family * We Can Sing, We Can Dance * Something Is Not Right * Where is the Hope That I Once Knew? * Together Trivia * This is Pepito's first film appearance along with his parents. He later appears in Madeline in Tahiti. * Henri, LaCroque, Fifi and her fellow Lace shop Girls are the only exclusive characters who appear in the movie, thus never making another appearance. * Madeline is the only known student at Miss Clavel’s school who is an orphan. * This was the last production of Madeline which included Christopher Plummer as the narrator. Category:Films